This invention is concerned with a cargo latch particularly, but not necessarily exclusively, for containers or pallets to be transported in an aircraft compartment.
A latch exemplary of the kind with which the present invention is concerned is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,397 issued Mar. 12 of 1974 to John Alberti and assigned to the Boeing Company. The device in that patent essentially comprises a frame with means cooperating with a track structure or an aircraft compartment floor and securing means for holding the frame in a selected position along that track. The frame includes a roller means for guiding a pallet or container thereover and, pivotally mounted to the frame rotatable latcharms movable between an erect, operative position in which one of the latch-arms can be engaged with a pallet or container and the other one of which prevents the first mentioned latch-arm from moving from that erect position. The latch-arms are movable to a collapsed position in which they lie within the frame and below the upper surface of the roller means which engage the pallet or container.
These cargo latches are provided at opposite ends of the container, usually there are two or more at each end of each container, and they are effective to prevent movement of the container during acceleration and deceleration of the airplane or other vehicle. It will of course be appreciated that movement of the cargo in flight or on landing or take-off can have disastrous results.
To release the latch-arms for movement to the collapsed position the second mentioned of the two arms is depressed which causes it to be disengaged from the first arm and then, under the action of springs associated with those arms they pivot to the collapsed position. The problem arises in that it is possible for the latch-arms inadvertently to be moved to the collapsed position, either through clumsiness on the part of an operator or by vibration. The present invention seeks to avoid this possibility.